Google PCA Ensure solution and operations reliability Practice Question
This PCA practice question tests your understanding of ensure solution and operations reliability. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company deploys a web application on Compute Engine behind an HTTP Load Balancer. They want to ensure only healthy instances receive traffic. What should they configure?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure an HTTP health check with a custom request path that returns a 200 status
Option B is correct because an HTTP health check with a custom request path that returns a 200 status allows the HTTP Load Balancer to verify that the web application is actually serving requests correctly. This ensures that only instances passing the application-level health check are considered healthy and receive traffic, preventing requests from being routed to instances that may be running but not serving the expected content.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Configure the instance group autoscaling based on CPU utilization
Why it's wrong here
Autoscaling manages instance count, not routing health decisions.
✓
Configure an HTTP health check with a custom request path that returns a 200 status
Why this is correct
HTTP health check validates the application layer by checking a specific endpoint.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Configure a TCP health check on port 80
Why it's wrong here
TCP health check only checks port availability, not application response.
✗
Configure an SSL health check to verify TLS handshake
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse health checks with autoscaling metrics, assuming that CPU-based autoscaling alone ensures traffic is only sent to healthy instances, when in fact health checks are a separate mechanism required for load balancer traffic routing.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, the HTTPLoad Balancer uses a configurable health check probe that sends an HTTP GET request to the specified path (e.g., /health) and expects a 200 OK response. If the response is non-200 or times out, the instance is marked unhealthy and removed from the backend service's rotation. A subtle behavior is that the health check interval and timeout must be tuned to avoid flapping; for example, setting a short interval with a low timeout can cause healthy instances to be prematurely marked unhealthy during transient load spikes.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this PCA question in full detail.
Ensure solution and operations reliability — This question tests Ensure solution and operations reliability — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure an HTTP health check with a custom request path that returns a 200 status — Option B is correct because an HTTP health check with a custom request path that returns a 200 status allows the HTTP Load Balancer to verify that the web application is actually serving requests correctly. This ensures that only instances passing the application-level health check are considered healthy and receive traffic, preventing requests from being routed to instances that may be running but not serving the expected content.
What should I do if I get this PCA question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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